Family-owned wholesale and distribution business

The client:

A family-owned wholesale and distribution business servicing the Qld health industries, such as doctor surgeries, hospitals both public and private and aged care facilities from a Brisbane head office.

Challenge:

The company believed their ageing AS 400 based ERP system was constraining the business. They wanted assistance to identify a suitable replacement ERP.

Product Used:

• Supply Chain & Technology Audit
• Project Governance for recommendation implementation

Intervention:

After some initial discussions, I established that they didn’t need a new ERP system. While the system could have been classified as a legacy “Green Screen” system rather than being GUI based, it did have functionality that was not being leveraged very well and could handle the existing business requirements.

Instead of undertaking an ERP replacement project, I recommended we undertake a supply chain audit. This audit entails an in-depth examination of the business and how it uses technology to both support the business and leverage competitive advantages. From that examination, a 93-page report containing 40 different recommendations was produced and presented to the client.

The recommendations ranged from:

• strategic, where I recommended the sale of one division of the business
• to tactical involving deploying new technology such as a fax card for electronic document delivery through to implementing radio frequency devices in the warehouse to help automate manual tasks, reconfiguring existing ERP settings, implementing improved business processes, such as inventory management, and measuring supplier performance.

Result:

The report made a significant impact on the owner when they realised, they had an independent advisor that would provide full and frank advice and assessments, someone that would have no hidden agendas, and that would tell them what they needed rather than provide what they wanted. They had not experienced having that kind of advice before and felt it was extremely valuable to have that independent view and input.

I was then re-engaged to help them implement those recommendations. By working with their team, specifically the operational team, we deployed many of the operational recommendations in under four months. This provided the business with the foundations to allow operations to meet promises being made to the market by their salespeople.

With the implementation of those recommendations, the business revenue doubled over the next three years, without adding to its staff numbers, leading to significant profit improvements. The owner was also in a position to step back from his day-to-day role and take a more passive role in the business while it grew.